Herbaria
Herbaria (herbarium, singular) are museums housing natural history collections, primarily specimens of fungi, lichens, bryophytes, and vascular plants. Specimens provide the baseline empirical evidence that supports a series of interrelated concepts about natural history and biology that have been perpetually built and revised since recognition of the biological species concept and Carl Linnaeus created the binomial nomenclature system that we still use in modern taxonomy. They provide data for all divisions of life, whether its DNA, organelles, cells, tissues/organs, individual organisms, populations of the same species, natural communities, landscapes, and biomes, at different temporal scales, whether it is seasons in a given year or years in different decades or centuries. Additionally, well-curated specimens can provide data hundreds of years after their initial collection. In conservation, specimens provide a record of what species occurred at a given place and time and how they occurred. This informs the collective natural history that we use to justify actions in land acquisition, land management, rare species conservation, ecological restoration, and all aspects of environmental conservation and preservation. Ongoing and future research with specimens in herbaria will continue to revise taxonomic and systematic concepts and elucidate discoveries that have not yet revealed themselves. Proper curation and ongoing deposition of specimens in herbaria will ensure the future building and revising of biological knowledge that underpins our society and humanity.
Articles on the importance of Herbaria
Cotterill 1994 – Systematics, biological knowledge and environmental conservation
Herbaria in Kentucky and Nearby:
SERNAC- (SouthEast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections) is a consortium of 233 herbaria in 14 states in the southeastern USA http://sernecportal.org/portal/index.php
Eastern Kentucky University
https://herbarium.eku.edu/
Dr. Sally Chambers
Morehead State University
Dr. Allen Risk
Austin Peay State University
https://www.apsu.edu/herbarium/
Mason Brock
Northern Kentucky University
https://inside.nku.edu/artsci/departments/biology/special-facilities-resources/herbarium.html
Dr. Maggie Whitson
Murray State University
http://www.murraystate.edu/qacd/cos/hbs/herbarium.htm
vacant
University of Kentucky
http://www2.ca.uky.edu/forestry/herbarium.php
Robert Paratley
University of Tennessee
https://herbarium.utk.edu/
Dr. Jessica M. Budke (Curator of vascular plant collection),
UNC Chapel Hill
http://herbarium.unc.edu/
Carol Ann McCormick (Curator)
Alan Weakley (Director)
United States National Herbarium (US)
https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/botany
Missouri Botanical Garden
http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plant-science/plant-science/resources/herbarium.aspx
Dr. James Solomon